Review Summary: A sweet and heartwarming story with a touch of harsh reality to keep it palatable.

Blurb: Chad Rarig and Sonny Phillips have been friends since skinned knees and after school homework. Life is pretty normal, if a bit bland for Chad, until he receives a phone call that changes the rest of his entire life. With Sonny’s strong shoulder in friendship and his mother’s support, he cautiously embraces his fate, one that includes binkies and an utter loss of sleep.

Sonny offers a chance to let Chad settle into this new wilderness of parenthood, sharing his home with his best friend. Only he definitely hadn’t anticipated having to deal with an attraction that left him panting and hungry as a starving man for his best friend. His gay best friend who thinks Sonny is straight, because he’s never told him the full truth to preserve their friendship above all else.

Can Chad come to terms with all the challenges of fatherhood and still keep Sonny’s friendship? Will either be willing to take the risk to cross that line from friendship to something more?

Review:

Chad did a favor for his friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth had no family or husband and desperately wanted a baby. She turned to Chad for help. Chad agreed to donate his sperm under the condition that he would take no part in raising the child. It was the perfect arrangement until Elizabeth died in a car crash. As baby Annalee’s only living relative, Chad suddenly becomes the father of a baby he has never even met.

Once Chad gets Annalee home, he is completely overwhelmed and has no idea how to take care of a baby. His first instinct is to call his best friend Sonny. Sonny, with his calm and collected personality, helps Chad by walking him through the basic needs of an infant one step at a time. After that first frantic phone call, Sonny heads over to Chad’s to help out and realizes the living situation is never going to work. Chad lives in a small one bedroom apartment. Sonny has the brilliant idea of asking Chad and Annalee to move into his home. There is plenty of room and they’ll both be able to take care of the baby. It’s genius, right? Umm.. no, Sonny has been in love with Chad for years and Chad has no idea. Now Sunny is faced with the torture of having everything he has ever dreamed of right in front of him. The only question left is whether he’s willing to risk everything by letting Chad know how he really feels.

I normally avoid books like this but the cute cover won me over. Super sweet and heartwarming stories generally leave me feeling a little nauseous, snarky and sarcastic is more my comfort zone. You can imagine my surprise when I started reading and actually liked this book! It is sweet but didn’t go into the sickening sweet territory. The romance between Sonny and Chad was good but very predictable. The supporting characters were what saved the book for me. Chad’s friends were great and their problems added the realism I need to enjoy a book. I loved the characters and I liked the romance. The Good Life is a nice, feel good book that even I could enjoy.